Mobile Sports Hall of Fame to induct Ben Harris on Tuesday night

View full sizeBlount football coach Ben Harris talks to the Leopards before the first practice for the 2002 season. (Bill Starling/bstarling@al.com)

MOBILE, Alabama - Friends told Ben Harris not to take the job as Blount High School's head football coach. Because he didn't listen, he'll join the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame next week.

Harris will be inducted into the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame on Tuesday night. He's part of the Hall of Fame's 25th class, which also includes former Cleveland Browns All-Pro Hanford Dixon, former Alabama track standout and McGill-Toolen coach Angelo Harris, former South Alabama baseball standout and NL All-Star pitcher Jon Lieber, former Williamson and Faulkner State basketball star and NBA player Pete Myers and former Vigor football standout and NFL running back Rickey Young.

"It's a great honor to be recognized by your hometown," Ben Harris said. "But I didn't do it by myself. All my former players, coaches, principals, teachers and staff are part of this. I'm real humbled to go in with this great class, and then to be part of the 25th one, it's a great honor.

"I was blessed. I was just trying to make a difference in kids' lives, and the kids made a difference in my life."

Harris was working as an assistant football coach at Baldwin County High School when he got the top job at Blount.

"I took the job on a Friday and practice started that Monday," Harris said. "Everybody told me, 'If I was you, I wouldn't take that job.'

"I didn't know they had one of the worst programs in the state."

Blount had won 11 football games in the previous five years when Harris took over the Leopards program for the 1988 season.

"My defensive coordinator was already named. I'd never met him," Harris said. "Some of the assistant coaches, I'd never met. That Monday when we started practice, I had six players to show up.

"Then I remember walking down the hall after our first playoff game, one of the coaches there, coach Scott, he said, 'Ben, do you realize what you did?' I said, 'No.' He said, 'You won the school's first playoff game.' I didn't know that. We beat Escambia County High School for our first playoff win in 1988."

Harris took the Leopards on a 10-season tear, compiling a 100-30 record and winning state championships in 1990, 1992, 1996 and 1997 and finishing second in 1991 and 1995.

Harris enjoyed the winning, of course, but he said that wasn't his primary objective as a coach.

"The thing I was real grateful about being at Blount was I was able to help turn some of the kids' lives around," he said. "We tried to go to church. We tried to be more than just coaches to them. I wanted them to try to be good citizens and to always give back.

"I used to go around checking the classrooms. I got the teachers involved. I had a list of all my players that I put in each teacher's box, so they knew if they got in trouble they could tell me. You know, back then we could do a little paddling."

Earlier this year, Harris was inducted into the Alabama High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame.

"My players had a big old cookout over at one of my player's houses the Sunday before the hall of fame," Harris said, "and I told my wife, 'That's just like having a hall of fame to have your players say good things about you.'"

Harris' coaching exploits overshadowed the athletic accomplishments of his youth. He went from being a football and basketball standout at Toulminville High School to a record-setting career as a quarterback for Alabama State from 1975 through 1978.

"In my athletic career, I was real blessed," Harris said. "I know everybody talks about football, but I played basketball. I was in the high school all-star game.

"I played football at Alabama State. I set some records up there and was the MVP twice in the Turkey Day Classic. I'm just real humbled by it. People like to talk about how good a quarterback I was, but I thought I was a better basketball player. I played one year at Alabama State."

Tickets for Tuesday's Mobile Sports Hall of Fame induction banquet cost $100. Of the ticket price, $30 is tax-deductible and goes toward the building of a permanent Mobile Sports Hall of Fame Museum in the RSA Battle House Tower lobby in downtown Mobile. Tickets can be purchased online or by calling 251-709-0310